Does it even matter?

I got an email this morning from Tristan, Mixergy’s producer saying, “Today’s guest is in London and doesn’t have his computer, which means he doesn’t have a way to do an interview.”

Does it matter if I record an interview today and publish it tomorrow?

I’ve done over 400 interviews here, more than you could ever watch, and my sponsors wouldn’t complain if I missed a day. So does it matter?

Before I tell you my answer, I’ll tell you how the day played out.

Tristan immediately started talking to people he knew in London to see if one of them could lend us a computer with a webcam for an hour.

So now you know his answer to the question. Showing up every day matters to him.

We ended up tweeting about it and Raam Tekrah of Touchnote, a Mixergy fan, offered to lend us his office. Today’s guest, Ty Morse of Songwhale, rushed over to Raam’s office and recorded an interview with me from there.

So now you know their answer. It matters to them.

By now you can guess my answer, but you’re probably wondering “Who gives a damn? All this work for one interview? Relax Andrew. Why does it really matter?”

In the interview, I asked Ty, “Why did your tech co-founder stick with you when your company was struggling, even though he had many better options?”

He said, “because of Beowulf the Rock Opera.”

You see, when Ty was in school he heard the unfinished Beowulf and liked it so much that he phoned the song’s writer, Jonathan Greenlee, and said, “I want to write the rest of the music.”

Jonathan said, “What instrument do you play?”

Ty said, “none,” and the conversation ended soon after.

That day Ty ran out to buy a guitar and taught himself play it. One month later he sent Jonathan a bunch of songs that he recorded.

At any time during that month Ty could have said “What does it matter? I don’t need to follow through on learning the guitar. I have other stuff going on in my life.”

But he didn’t. He kept at it.

Years later, the guy who signed up to become Ty’s tech co-founder at Songwhale was Jonathan — the same guy who didn’t give up on Ty or the company when times got tough.

The commitment we make to our work tells others how committed they should be to us. Don’t you agree?